He flipped to the rear of the book, consulted an index, changed back, frowned, scribbled a note on a slip of paper, and slid it into a pneumatic tube.
Far beneath the wooden floor, in a chamber walled with concrete, silver, polycarbonate steel, and sound-deadening foam, rows of dreamers lay chained to tables, gagged and blindfolded. The gags muffled their screams and kept them from gnawing off their tongues. An attendant took the receptionist’s note from the pneumatic tube, bent beside a dreamer, removed the muff from her ear, and whispered the message there. The woman went rigid, twitched, and with the quill pen bound to her free hand scribbled a response on a roll of paper that spooled beneath her pen nib. The attendant razored the response free, returned to the vacuum tube, and—
Tara knew the process—she’d never been much of a nightmare jockey, but one did familiarize oneself with the basic tools of one’s profession—but she was glad she didn’t have to watch. Blood and piss didn’t mesh with professional attire. But that, as the Iskari said, was war. No arguing with efficiency: in under a minute, the pneumatic tube vomited her answer. “A technician will join you shortly.” A complex Craftwork sigil occupied the center of his desk, all correspondence runes and irreproducible angles. He traced a glyph-line sequence, and green fire trailed his fingertip. “Have a seat.”
“Maybe we could leave a message?” Abelard whispered.
“We can still talk to her. We have to jump a few hurdles first, is all.”
“What kind of hurdles?”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll be fine.”
The tech escorted them down a smoked-glass hall to a chamber of tables with tops molded to fit the usual human extremities. “Lie here,” she said, with a slight Camlaander lilt, “side by side, if you please.”
Tara kicked off her shoes and lay back. The table adjusted to her body’s contours. Abelard drilled his finger into the tabletop, then watched the wood flow to fill the pit he’d made. “Come on,” Tara said. “We don’t want to keep her waiting.”
Abelard reclined.
“Do you sleepwalk?” the tech asked.
“I don’t think so.”
Tara shook her head.
“Good.” She adjusted a few levers and turned a few wheels beneath the bed. “Any preexisting medical conditions? No smoking, please.”
Abelard set the cigarette, still burning, on the table.
“Thank you.” From a drawer in the wall the tech produced two paper-wrapped wreaths and slit the paper with a knife. “Completely sterile. Hold still.” The circlets were stainless steel and hinged. Sharp prongs jutted inward.
Abelard squirmed as the needles settled against his skin. “Is this necessary?”
“Yes,” said Tara and the tech at once.
She’d done this before, but still she drew her breath when the tech bent over her. The circlet crimped her hair as it closed. Stupid design—probably built by balding Technicians to balding spec. The circlet’s spikes needled her skin.
“Very good,” the tech said. Had they chosen her for her accent? It should have soothed, but nothing set Tara so on edge as the sense she was being soothed. The tech’s fingers pressed firm, soft, and cool against her wrist. The woman was paid to touch people, and did so with as much routine disregard as one would expect. Tara wondered—not a prurient interest, just abstract curiosity—whether the tech had to set all that aside when she lay with a lover, the way Craftswomen learned to discard habits of boardroom argument at home. Were this woman’s hands always her instruments?
Abelard laughed when she took his pulse.
“Hold still,” the tech said. “You’ll feel a tickling sensation.”
Then the needles went in, and the pain started.
*
Fangmouthswallowinggroundingoutgearsanddigestedtopulpbyathicketofthorncurledshapes
to wake from the dark dream of herself in a well-appointed office where, told to sit, she sat
Walkforwardtosomethingyouthinkisfreedomdownahalllinedwithrazorsangledin
and with every step the razors near, halfway down the hall and they press against your skin, dimpling flesh, and you can’t turn back because the light beyond the door at the end of the hall is so beautiful you could fall into it forever, at last, happy—there’s a monster behind you but you’re not afraid of monsters, even ones like this sculpted from childhood centipede fears, hooked legs too large for that enormous body and moving fast, a primal terror that barely makes sense because when save in the farthest mouse-shadows of history did your ancestors have to fear spiders? No, monsters do not scare you. But to face them, to defend yourself, would be to turn from the light at the end of the razor hall, which you cannot do. Your life waits there for you. Light washes you like water, like the tears you weep, like—Mom—rare as a father’s approving smile, it’s there and only your own skin is stopping you so you
step
into
the
razors
and
the
razors
bite
and you scream, you bleed, they’re inside you, cold lines rasping bone, but you’ve done this to yourself and having come so far what’s another
step
or